Edwards Assumes Losing Position for 2008

The following is a list of recent presidential candidates elected on platforms that included increases in taxes: .

That's what makes so impressive the announcement from John Edwards that as President he would raise taxes to extend Medicaid to more people at a cost of $120 billion. Edwards clearly either thinks he is so brilliant a politician that he can do what Walter Mondale and his disciples could not, namely, get elected by promising to tax people more. Or he intends to become the Democrats' Harold Stassen, the man who always runs and never gets close to the White House.

The bad news is that this puts Hillary one step closer to the nomination. Granted, her history with federal health care plans suggests that she thinks much like Edwards on this point. But her husband's having run in 1992 on a platform of tax cuts that he withdrew as soon as he was elected suggests that she will be less forthcoming about her intentions.